Should I stay or should I go? The impact of a sense of control on young men's therapeutic engagement

Abstract

Background Despite the fact that young men are difficult to engage in counselling, there is a paucity of research that examines the factors that may influence their decision making to enter, remain in or exit from therapy. One area that has remained particularly unrepresented in the literature is the role that a sense of control plays in this process. Aim/Methodology Using a narrative approach, this study aimed to explore the stories of young men aged 18–25 and in doing so illuminated the impact of control on their counselling experiences. Findings The study suggests that control impacts on young men's therapy‐related decision‐making in three distinct ways: making the decision to engage in therapy; controlling the process of therapy; and choosing who knows about the therapy. Implications These emergent domains suggest that incorporating and discussing control with young male clients may provide the therapist with a means of increasing a young male's therapeutic engagement.

Approaches to Engaging Men During Primary Healthcare Encounters: A scoping review

“…Gender is dynamic and modifiable, and this includes men's masculine identities which will adapt to the different social environments including healthcare settings. By prioritizing engagement catered to diversity in and across men (Doherty et al, 2017), HCPs can help men with transformative masculinities to ''legitimise help-seeking as the rational, courageous, and 'manly' course of action'' (Carroll et al, 2020;Seidler et al, 2022). Such strength-based approach in health programming is increasingly being recognized as an essential ingredient in advancing men's health equity (Galdas et al, 2023;Smith et al, 2020).…”

“…Rosu et al (2017) described this as adopting a ''masculinities'' perspective that acknowledges the many and varied ways of being a man and responding to, and reducing, biases toward stereotyped masculinity. Practitioners should be sensitive to diversity including men ''whose principles and expectations relating to masculinity and gender are less pronounced'' as well as those who ''strongly ascribe to hegemonic masculine principles'' (Doherty et al, 2017).…”

What Young People Want from Clinicians: Youth-Informed Clinical Practice in Mental Health Care

“…Young people have consistently indicated that the relationship with their clinician is important to them when seeking mental health treatment [26,45]. From the research that has been conducted, the most common factors which young people report improve their engagement with clinicians include being listened to [26,46,47]; experiencing a genuine connection [34,48]; feeling accepted without judgment or stigma [49][50][51][52]; having their autonomy respected [34,49]; a less hierarchical relationship [26,34,49,50,53,54]; a more informal and friendly relationship [34,49,50]; a sense of control and choice in their own care [34], which may be particularly significant for young men [55]; trust [56] particularly regarding confidentiality [46,57]; and empathy and care [49,50,[52][53][54]58]. More supportive clinicians with strong communication, clear acceptance, empathy, and non-judgmental attitudes are valued highly [59].…”